My friend, frequent Regional-at-Sea cruiser, and now 3-time Real-Deal contributor Judge John has struck again. Playing in the Seattle Tennis Club, he reported Board 8 to me:

Vul:None Dlr: West	102  K2  AJ87  AQ865
A83  10876  65  9732		KJ976  J95  K94  J4
	Q54  AQ43  Q1032  K10

West passed and North opened 1. South responded 1 and, according to John, South ended up in 3NT. I suspect North must have rebid 2 (not strong enough to reverse). Personally, I don't like 1, 2 for North. I'd either open 1 (planning to rebid 2) or I'd upgrade North's hand to a "balanced 15" and open 1NT (to avoid the rebid problem). 3NT by North would likely fail. East would lead a low spade. Dummy would play low, and declarer would have a spade stopper. But declarer wouldn't guess clubs correctly and would probably fail by taking a losing diamond finesse.

Back to what happened on our Real Deal. Against South's 3NT, West chose the 6. Declarer can read this as not 4th-best (there are not enough missing cards higher than the six). Accordingly, he should probably play dummy's A (the lead could actually be from 9654 in which case the K would drop singleton!). Also, declarer doesn't want East to win and switch to spades. If declarer wins the A, he will presumably play the top clubs, hoping for 5 clubs, 3 hearts and a diamond. No luck there.

At the table, declarer played low from dummy at trick one and East won the K. Now what? East shifted to a low spade. Declarer guessed to play low, and West won the A and continued the suit. Declarer made 1 spade, 3 hearts, 3 diamonds and 3 clubs for an overtrick.

Do you see the winning defense at trick two? Yes, the J--a surrounding play. Now the defense takes 5 spades and a diamond for down two.

On the hand record printout, no doubt it says that 3NT can't make if North declares (East's unlikely J opening lead would scuttle the contract). But from South, 3NT can always make (the defense can't take 5 spade tricks with West on lead).  However, nine tricks require that declarer starts clubs by leading low to his 10 (not likely).

This was quite an interesting deal with many possibilities in the bidding, play and defense. What happened on the Real Deal?  Judge John isn't saying (other than that he and his wife were East-West and got a poor result).